College Football in Ireland Renews Rivalry for Notre Dame’s Travel Agency
Source: Sportico by Daniel Libit
Excerpt from article:
While Anthony Travel has persistently tried to grow beyond the athletic department, its main competitor has kept its ambitions in check.
Short’s Travel Management, founded in 1946, made its foray into college sports in 2003, when it won the NCAA travel management contract for all the association’s end-of-season championships. Two years later, the company began approaching individual schools about regular-season travel needs, which now forms the core of the business.
Then, about a decade ago, Short’s made a strategic decision to focus more on the corporate client side, thereby ceding much of the college sports industry to Anthony Travel. Ryan Dohmen, president of Short’s charter airlines division, attributes Anthony Travel’s customer boom in the late aughts and early 2010s to his company’s unilateral disengagement. Short’s eventually returned to the intercollegiate fray about five years ago and, following the pandemic, made college sports its dedicated focus.
“We decided that the corporate side of the business wasn’t where we wanted it to be,” Dohmen said.
Short’s currently holds around 70 travel management contracts with athletic departments but, unlike Anthony Travel, has declined to pursue fan or other kinds of university-related travel.
Last year, the company made waves when it won back the Florida State athletic travel account from Anthony Travel. Rosey Murton, FSU’s chief procurement officer, said that amid the financial pinch of COVID-19, the school was motivated to find cost savings, particularly on charter flights, which it did by moving its business
Contrary to the Anthony Travel norm of physically embedding its employees into athletic departments, Short’s handles almost all of its university accounts remotely, believing that this enables the company to attract a better talent pool.
“One of our slogans is we were remote before remote was cool,” Dohmen said.
In the case of FSU, however, Short’s agreed to maintain an on-site agent, per the school’s request.. ..read full article